


i am your neighbor

by aishiteita



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, M/M, this is nonsense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-20
Updated: 2016-11-20
Packaged: 2018-09-01 03:03:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8604604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aishiteita/pseuds/aishiteita
Summary: It was easy to want; Wonwoo copied a picture of Jeonghan into his mind, perfectly identical to the real thing, and proceeded to embellish it with glitter and gold.





	

**Author's Note:**

> hi i wonhaned for no good reason other than not wanting to go through w business n management finals;;  
> re: tags!! it involves punching btwn two boys (not wonhan. but. just in case u dont like seeing the punchies)
> 
> theres also a slight mention of depression jUST a smidge bc for some reason parents love generalizing
> 
> other than that :')) here is a flat piece of whatever i fashioned out of self indulgence. nothing happens in it pls skim thru and forget of its existence

When Wonwoo first laid eyes on Yoon Jeonghan, it was a balmy January evening and he had blood running down his chin.

"What?" he spat. "Never seen a fight before?"

Jeonghan wore a hoodie that time. It was his favorite hoodie, an oversized thing of faded pink with no drawstrings. He also had long hair then; it swayed in time with the shake of his head. "I've seen one," he answers nonchalantly, blinking slow as if his lids were too heavy to lift completely.

It was on the curb of the street, where they first met. Wonwoo sat on the concrete, ignoring the stench of trash as Jeonghan opened the bin and chucked two bags' worth of waste in. Jeonghan's nasal voice cut through Wonwoo's crumbly foot-tapping and the throb of his right cheek. "You wanna smoke?"

When Wonwoo turned his head around, Jeonghan was standing just a mere foot away from him. An open pack of Marlboros was offered in his direction. Wonwoo declined. "I can't smoke."

"Huh." Jeonghan shrugged and pocketed the pack. "Didn't pin you as the type. Anywho, good luck with whatever. You should get in somewhere, though. The cops check for loitering around here."

Wonwoo groaned, getting up on his knees which creaked as he straightened them. "I know. I live here." Jeonghan quizzically pointed at the house behind him, and Wonwoo nodded.

"Well. Hello, neighbor," Jeonghan greeted with a slight smile. He stuck a cigarette between his lips, lighter hidden behind his cupped hand. "Thanks for all the noise, by the way," he said, smoke coming out in thick, heavy puffs which billowed down to smother Wonwoo.

"Shut up."

 

 

**i. sucker punch**

When Wonwoo broke up, it was a blur.

To say it was violent is fitting; concise. It was just that. Wonwoo had his hands in tight fists, but they remained glued to the sides of his hips while the other raised his. One blow, straight across Wonwoo's cheek and he tasted metal bursting in his mouth before the color took over his vision. He might've shouted, he probably cursed. Wonwoo doesn't remember much after the point where they were wrestling on the floor.

"Pack your shit in thirty minutes. This is my house. I can mail whatever is left, so please."

Wonwoo was sitting atop concrete again like he did a couple fights ago. The house was left alone to say farewell to its other inhabitant. There was no Jeonghan to offer him a cigarette he couldn't smoke, which was unfortunate because Wonwoo finally could without anyone to complain about the taste of ashes when they kiss.

He bit his nails instead; peeled the layers and ripped the cuticles off the surface until they formed hangnails. He bit them down to their beds of soft skin, pale and wet from spit. By the end of thirty minutes, Wonwoo had three nails left intact.  

***

Yoon Jeonghan lives with his mother and sister, and this resulted in his constant pestering of Wonwoo. ( _If I have to listen to them rant about makeup one more time, I'm gonna lose it!_ ) Between their semi-detached houses was no distance at all, and Jeonghan's incessant ringing of the doorbell had become Wonwoo's morning alarm.

"You are cordially invited to school," Jeonghan mumbled as nasally as ever. "Mom is worried you're, in her words, _depressed_."

"When will this wakeup call end? I don't remember subscribing." Wonwoo locked his door, rust getting on his fingers and he sucked the back of his teeth. (If Wonwoo tried hard enough, he could still taste blood.) "For the record, I'm not depressed."

Jeonghan shook his head before shrugging. "If you'd just entertain my mom for once and show up for dinner. She keeps nagging at me about you. I don't even know you. I'm doing this for free sandwiches—can you believe she would make sandwiches for you but not me?"

"How outrageous," Wonwoo chuckled.

Jeonghan smirked into his muffler, nose pink from the cold. "Right?"

 

 

**ii. neighbor**

There were various levels of comfort with Jeonghan. His perpetual state of being half-lidded and almost sleepy meant room for mistakes, and Wonwoo relished in that. He checked his phone openly, knowing that Jeonghan would be too lazy to care for what was on his screen. There was no need to lie about who he was meeting, who he was texting, why he left the house at six-thirty p.m. on a Tuesday evening. Of course, these comforts are a given, because they weren't privileges to begin with. Wonwoo had just been living oddly for the past three years, give or take a few months.

"Here," Jeonghan muttered around a mouthful of chips, greasy fingers slipping on the surface of the remote control. It wasn't even his remote control, nor was it his house, and yet there were crumbs all over the floor. "Change it to whatever you want. Finish the chips. I'm gonna sleep."

"Okay." Wonwoo did just that, switching through channel after channel until he settled for some foreign music program. Jeonghan left nothing for him but small, broken chip bits at the bottom of the bag, and Wonwoo groaned, opting to leave the chips untouched. He watched Jeonghan out of the corner of his eye, fast asleep on one side of the couch after having seized Wonwoo's blanket all to himself.

It was this comfort that made Wonwoo miss something he couldn't quite place. He was used to it, to seeing someone sleep next to him in such a setting. It wasn't anything new. There was nothing to miss.

To this comfort, Wonwoo left it in the living room as it was, with the loud music still playing and the kitchen sink's faucet still dripping the seconds in his missing clock's stead (because the clock didn't belong to him and was dutifully sent back to its rightful owner). He climbed up the stairs, padded over to the last room in the hallway which was just a tad too large for one.

If he tried hard enough, the comforters against his bare skin could feel human, and the pillow he held would embrace him in turn. In the lack of sleep and his half-hearted state of near tears was a sense of bliss itself, and Wonwoo would wait until he hears the slam of his front door before drifting off at last.

***

"My mom still thinks you're depressed."

Wonwoo laughed at that, a barking sort that sounded ugly, but Jeonghan had told him once that it was _disarming_. "Please assure her that I really am not."

"If you would only fix your face," Jeonghan sighed. He tugged at the corner of Wonwoo's mouth with one finger while another pinches his cheek to pull it up. "See? That doesn't look so bad. Maybe she'll finally stop asking me to take you to a counselor."

Wonwoo swatted Jeonghan's hand away before rubbing at his cheek. "I did see one. Last week."

"Did you now? What did they say?"

"Typical things," Wonwoo said with a yawn. "Said that I'm broken, I need time and friends, family, the works."

"Lovely things, yeah?"

"Yeah," Wonwoo breathed. They were in the dead of spring; the silent drizzle of light April showers a common background as they milled about the campus grounds. "Y'know, I told the counselor I like you."

Jeonghan was unperturbed. His steps didn't falter and he didn't so much as give Wonwoo a sideways glance while drawling, "Did you, now?"

***

The thing about Jeonghan is that he wasn't a rebound attempt, nor was he some groundbreaking revelation on Wonwoo's part. Jeonghan was just there, almost a convenience in the way they were neighbors and how Jeonghan liked the quiet of Wonwoo's house a little too much when he visited with a Tupperware full of whatever sandwich his mother felt like stuffing Wonwoo's face with.

It was easy to want; Wonwoo copied a picture of Jeonghan into his mind, perfectly identical to the real thing, and proceeded to embellish it with glitter and gold. He could convince himself to like Jeonghan's eyebags, his heavy eyelids and surprisingly strong forearms, his figure that Wonwoo had never even seen before, constantly swimming in excess fabric. It was the farthest from his ideal, but Wonwoo wanted it. He wanted Jeonghan a frightening lot.

Swimming in the dark of the theatre studio's thick velvet curtains, Wonwoo let the idea form; a steel trap around his head when he watched Jeonghan take on center stage. The lights are blue and the bridge of Jeonghan's nose glistens the same color, skin painted a pasty white for his role. He had a complicated costume, a grand thing of ruffles and shiny sequins that blinded you when light so much as bounced off them. Behind the curtains, Wonwoo wore all black, bits of lint stuck to the sleeves of his tee as he held a prop box close to his chest, ready to rush into the next scene.

It was in moments like this, between thick velvet curtains of black casted a deep indigo and the cold steel of scaffolding, between the waxy taste of Jeonghan's stage makeup and the fear of ruining it, between scenes of dated dialogue and voices that weren't nasal—it was in moments like this that Wonwoo wanted the most, wanted so much his insides twisted themselves up and his stomach clenched.

He didn't make the first move. Wonwoo never did. There were little glances, but they weren't shy. Wonwoo would face Jeonghan and blatantly let his lashes swoop down, eyes trained on teeth barely visible between parted lips. It was no secret. Jeonghan just acted on it before Wonwoo did.

These moments were when Wonwoo was completely convinced that the copy of Jeonghan he had in mind was far inferior than him in reality, that his cheap glitter and fake gold sequins couldn't compare to the royal blue dripping down Jeonghan's face. It was the farthest Wonwoo had ever been from his ideal, the complete opposite of what he had claimed to like and love and favor.

Their hands inched closer to each other's, fingers sweaty as they slipped between themselves, knit together. He still wanted Jeonghan a lot.

 

 

**iii. sandman**

Wonwoo dreamt a lot of the past. It came in familiar settings of him walking down a street for the umpteenth time with someone he knew three months or three years ago. (He could never tell.) The conversations would be a swirl, water gargling down the sink and it was hard to make out the words even though Wonwoo knew he had heard everything before at one point in time.

When he woke up, it was to the miniscule scar (only half an inch or so) on the bone protruding from his skinny wrist, the slightest raise of flesh under skin paler than the rest of his arm. He knew who gave it to him, but he couldn't remember how. The same went for his clothes, his hair, his choice of furniture, the food he ate, the books he read.

"You want me to cut your hair?" Jeonghan asked, bewildered when Wonwoo placed the scissors in his hand.

"Go wild," he said, "I don't care."

Jeonghan hesitated. "I should call my sister."

"Okay."

***

"You don't have to give me an answer."

The couch was Wonwoo's. He had paid for its entirety, as well as the house's initial deposit. It was all his save for the dining table (which he had sold off), the clock (which had been sent away), and most of the kitchen (shipped back to his mother).

Jeonghan set his mug down on the coffee table, ceramic meeting glass loudly because they thought coasters were highly unnecessary. The coffee table wasn't Wonwoo's anyway. He just didn't want to return it. "I know."

"But it's still okay for me to like you, right?"

Wonwoo was lying down on the couch, the length of his torso allowing his feet to easily reach the other side. Jeonghan looked up at him from where he was seated on the floor, leaning against the couch, head nudging at Wonwoo's ribs. "I guess so," he had answered. Like it wasn't anything major. (It wasn't. Wonwoo just liked exaggerating.)

"And you're still coming over like this." Wonwoo didn't dare remove his eyes from Jeonghan. His face was a projection screen, colors splattered across his sharp features with brief transitions between violets and yellows. "This is what most would dub as _leading someone on_."

"But I know I'm not. If anything, aren't _you_ leading _me_ on?"

Wonwoo took his gaze off Jeonghan's lips. His hair looked blue in the dark, lit only by the television. "You're right."

***

Some minutes after midnight with fingers reeking of tobacco was when Wonwoo realized that no, Jeonghan truly was too far from his ideal. There was an inherent complacency whenever he spoke, and it was in this complacency that Wonwoo couldn't find the answers he needed for years wasted in his own house, breathing harshly and whimpering under his own sheets.

Yoon Jeonghan wasn't the answer and Wonwoo was a little more than desperate. He rubbed at his wrist more often, as if making the scar red would bring attention to it. Jeonghan never noticed. The scar was too small for him to anyway.

"Wonwoo," Jeonghan called beyond the veil of smoke between them. "You know I like you, right?"

Wonwoo nodded, eyes downcast as he felt the nicotine overtake him. He hadn't had a puff for three whole years. The grey made him nauseous and Wonwoo just wanted to sleep somewhere, sleep for good. "I know," he mumbled, the words as sticky as the sweat on their calves, muggy summer heat bearing down on them. Jeonghan still stood tall against the humidity while Wonwoo had given up, back stinging from when he slumped down the wall.  

"I know you don't anymore."

Jeonghan didn't look brokenhearted or anything. There was his usual lethargy, and then some. Less pink in his cheeks, more lines around his eyes and down the sides of his nose. His lips were chapped. Wonwoo briefly wondered if he himself looked any better.

"Yeah, I don't like you anymore," he confessed. The truth of this statement was something dubious even to him. "I'm sorry."

Jeonghan waved it off, like it wasn't anything important.

***

It took a total of seven months for Wonwoo to realize what he'd been making in his head all along. There was a house attached to his, separated by a low fence, and in that house was Yoon Jeonghan. But he never glittered nor did he have gold. He was bathed in the dim yellow light of Wonwoo's bare kitchen most of the time, and the television's blue was too light, a sad washed-out version of Jeonghan's spotlight from the performance some weeks ago.

It took another two months before Wonwoo settled matters with his house. The _FOR SALE_ sign was nailed onto his fence, and he scraped up enough money to rent a room in his classmate's apartment. Jeonghan helped him pack, knocking on his front door with a warm Tupperware in one hand as he always did.

"I'm gonna miss you, neighbor."

Wonwoo didn't know what to say to that. He hoped whatever face he made was the correct one. "Me too."

It was too late when Wonwoo realized that he moved away on Jeonghan's birthday.

 

 

**iv. these were yours**

Wonwoo stands before Jeonghan's front door, which he remembers to be a light brown but it has been repainted a mossy green. He presses the doorbell, exhaling sharply as he tries to stop his knee from jostling the box of cakes he's carrying.

Jeonghan opens the door. His hair is as long as ever while the pink of his hoodie has faded to an off-white. The dull edge to his smile is new, however, and Wonwoo takes in the softer lines of his face, as if Jeonghan has been washing it with a pumice stone for the past six months or so. (Wonwoo will never admit to counting, but he did.)

"It's been a while," Jeonghan greets, drawl sleepy and nasal, just the way Wonwoo left him. He gives Wonwoo a onceover, chuckling the whole while. Wonwoo thinks that it must be his obligatory office wear and hair kept the same way Jeonghan's sister had done for him. "Well, don't you look fresh?"

***

Only after one year and three months without a person in his bed, six months without Jeonghan to picture in his mind, can Wonwoo stack up papers without trembling hands. He doesn't look at the color blue like it's longing, and gold is something his mother wears on her ears. The scar is still present on his wrist, but he walks around town during peak hours to avoid the subway crowd, and he's gone for the internship he wanted since freshman year instead of jumping straight for his master's.

"Hey, Wonwoo, get back together with me. I'm holding onto the old house."

The three years before last January don't mean a thing to him anymore.

"Stop doing that. I'm not going back to you."

***

"Got you some cakes," Wonwoo says, lifting the box up. It reeks of vanilla and buttercream. "Our client gave us too much—my manager told me to bring it over but there's only one person in my place right now, so..."

Jeonghan lights up at the box; he snatches it out of Wonwoo's weak grasp and shouts for his mother and sister to come down to the dining room. It's after eleven in the evening when the cakes are gone, and Jeonghan makes his way to the bin outside with the box in his hands. Wonwoo follows closely after, the ends of Jeonghan's hair nearly scratching his eye when the breeze blows against them.

"Hey," Jeonghan laughs as he opens the bin, "doesn't this remind you of last year? When you still lived there with your boyfriend?"

Wonwoo squints at what was once his house. Like Jeonghan, it remains the way Wonwoo left it; the front porch is bare, walls off-white with lichen taking over one corner. "Shit," he chuckles, "it does."

"I broke the door in," Jeonghan admits, opening the fence with a creak. "This place will be my hideout until someone's decided to buy it for good."

"Huh." Wonwoo walks into a familiar doorway, nose itching from the dust. "How do you stand it here?"

Jeonghan plops down onto the same couch Wonwoo had slept on so many times before. The blanket Wonwoo had been searching for in his new apartment in Jeonghan's hold, its hem frayed and surface full of lint.

"They're too old to be sold," Jeonghan reasons.

 


End file.
